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Imperium, by Robert Harris

Unlike most of Harris’s previous fiction, this is not a thriller or even a mystery. Imperium is biographical fiction; fascinating, exciting and very readable.

Published in 2006, this is the first of Harris’s books about the life of the Roman lawyer and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC –43 BC), as told by Marcus Tullius Tiro, his secretary and slave. Tiro really did write a life of Cicero, but it was lost in the chaos of the fall of the Roman Empire. Harris says that the majority of the events his Tiro reports did actually happen, and the remainder ‘at least could have happened’; he uses Cicero’s actual words to great advantage. And while Cicero is the centre of attention, it is a story about Tiro, the narrator, as well.

Cicero is a ‘new man’; he has neither great wealth nor aristocratic connections, so he has to make his way based on his wits. ‘All he had was his voice,’ says Tiro, ‘-and by sheer effort of will he turned it into the most famous voice in the world’. The story falls into two parts. The first, ‘Senator’, covers the years 79-70BC, and mainly focuses on Cicero’s prosecution of Gaius Verres, the corrupt former governor of Sicily. The second, ‘Praetorian’, covers 68-64BC, and deals with Cicero’s battle to be elected Consul. The wheeling and dealing and bribery and corruption in Rome make modern politics look almost honest by comparison. Bit I did find some present day echoes of old Roman tactics, which is not surprising. ‘The whole point of my book,’ Harris says, ‘is that politics never changes. In 2,000 years, absolutely nothing has changed’.

Tiro tells the story in the first person. The language is wholly modern, even when incorporating sections of Cicero’s speeches. Tiro is normally a self-effacing narrator, but he also has an eye for the comedy of a situation, and writes at times with gentle humour. He can see right through Cicero. ‘Cicero clasped Lucius’s hand fervently in both of his and gazed deep into his eyes – the old double grip routine which I had seen so often in this very room.’

And while the focus is on Cicero, we do learn about Tiro – and what it must have been like to be a slave, albeit a relatively privileged one. This is mostly done by implication; Tiro almost never feels sorry for himself, or complains of his lot. Just once the humiliation of his position upsets him: ‘I had no business to feel aggrieved. I was merely a slave, after all: an extra hand, a tool – a ‘creature’ as Catulus put it.’ He longs to be granted his freedom.

Tiro is looking back at these events in old age. He is therefore able to give some context to the story, though he does so sparingly, wishing to avoid ‘shining the distorting light of the future’ on the past. It is enough, however, to enable the reader to see that Cicero’s dealings take place in the last days of the Republican period; the Emperor Julius Caesar is waiting in the wings.

Other than this, I don’t think you need know anything about Roman history to enjoy this book. This is because Harris tells you pretty much all you need to know. And Republican Rome is brought brilliantly to life, with its smells and dust, casual cruelty and great beauty. My only problem was in remembering the names (Cato, Catulus, Catilina, Crassus, Caecilius, Caelius …) and the various political, civil, legal and religious offices. A glossary might have helped. But you probably do have to find power interesting, because that’s what the book is about: ‘official political power – what we know in Latin as imperium – the power of life and death, as vested by the state in an individual’. Hence the title of the book.

You can read some other reviews of the book here, and about the life of Cicero here.

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I guess I always have a problem with historical novels: is this bit accurate? is this true? “Imperium” was no exception, and within a few pages I was worrying about whether senators were really elected in the late Republican period – traditionally they were nominated by the Censor from the noble families and were augmented each year by the retiring consuls; or whether all elected officials were entitled to lictors, the guards bearing the fasces traditionally symbolising the consuls’ power of life and death – while in office. However not far into the story of the intricacies of the trial of Verres I became absorbed by the drama and the politicking, just to get the case brought before a court, let alone to get a conviction for the scandalously corrupt Verres.

Harris has a clear style which carries the story at a fitting pace: a page-turner, easy to read, and reluctantly put down.

I did find the second half less compelling, dwelling as it did on the next rung in Cicero’s climb of the ladder of honour, the necessary steps for anyone – except Pompey – to get to the highest honour, the consulship.

I think Cicero’s political career was, to Harris, a puzzle. His challenge was to solve it. By combining imaginative reconstruction with research, he could find the solution – or at least suggest a solution which could have happened. However the puzzle itself – how a ‘new man’ could become consul – was not so unusual, and certainly by Cicero’s time, the social cliques and traditional class groupings had become very fluid. Harris keeps stressing Cicero’s “provincial ” background and lack of noble ancestry, indeed his status as an “outsider”, and this characterisation does demand some extraordinary answers, and enormous political manouevring. I’m just sceptical about so many deals in a process which after all each year produced two consuls, most of whom were pretty forgetable. And I didn’t find the tension of the intrigues nearly as gripping as in the lead-up to the Verres case.

However the introduction of Catalina is essential background to the rocky road of Cicero’s consulship, so I’d better read the next book in the series.